Creation Care

KATOWICE, Silesia, POLAND, December 8, 2018, March for Climate during Conference of the Parties COP24. Editorial credit: Bernadetta Sarat / Shutterstock.com

The United Nations climate negotiations in Katowice, Poland — the follow-up to the blockbuster 2015 Paris conference — came to a dramatic close on Dec. 15 with the adoption of the "Katowice Climate Package." The package represents significant progress on global climate action and will allow nations to move forward in setting and meeting greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets over the next five years. However, the roadmap will need major improvements to reach the level of “ambition” the scientific community says is needed to protect the most vulnerable.

Avery Davis Lamb 11-15-2018
REUTERS/Stephen Lam

A Butte County Sheriff deputy surveys a burned out home destroyed by the Camp fire in Paradise, California, U.S. November 10, 2018. REUTERS/Stephen Lam

A dystopian scene is unfolding across California. Charred car skeletons sit idle on the side of roads in the working-class town of Paradise, Calif. In one video, a camera pans to reveal what looks like an apocalyptic movie set — passing the remains of an abandoned school bus, begging us to ask what happened to those who were inside.

O God, as the prophet proclaimed long ago,
You care for your earth and your gifts overflow.
Though sin leads to things that disrupt and destroy,
You work to redeem and to bring life and joy.

Gerald L. Durley 10-09-2018
Photo by Francisco Moreno on Unsplash

Photo by Francisco Moreno on Unsplash

As a civil rights activist from the civil rights movement of the ‘60s, I continue to believe that everyone has constitutional rights. Thousands of Americans are being denied their civil and human rights because insensitive or politically manipulated legislators are creating policies that are destroying the environment. When profits, rather than the well-being of human and environmental life, determine the survival of the planet, it is a civil rights issue.

Christina Colón 10-05-2018

BALTIMORE, MD - February 6, 2015: The Wheelabrator Baltimore incinerator in operation on a winter day, has been converting solid waste to electricity since 1985. Editorial credit: duckeesue / Shutterstock.com

This weekend, more than 80 faith communities in Maryland will lift up climate justice as part of the fourth annual “Climate in the Pulpits / on the Bimah / in the Minbar” event. Jointly organized by Interfaith Power & Light (DC.MD.NoVa) and the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, the event is a multi-faith effort to carry the message of creation care from the pews to policy makers.

Robyn Purchia 9-14-2018

A desire to care for the environment also stems from the Christian traditions of compassion and love. Congregations have long worked to alleviate hunger, lift the poor and the vulnerable, and comfort the sick. Creating community gardens, making energy more affordable, and working to avoid the worst effects of climate change, which are disproportionately felt by low-income communities, stem from these traditions.

Marlene Cimons 8-29-2018

Catovic, 53, is an American Muslim of Bosnian-Anglo descent who lives in New Jersey and serves as the senior Islamic advisor to GreenFaith, an interfaith coalition for environmental issues. He believes the responsibility of fighting climate change begins with the individual, but stresses that the Green Hajj is “not just about the more privileged parts of the Western World. I am just one person who is making this commitment. There are many other millions of people who are doing this too.”

Bill McKibben 5-01-2018

IN THE REMARKABLE speech that God delivers beginning in Job 38—God’s longest soliloquy in the Bible, Old Testament or New—we hear of the mountain goat, the raven, the lioness, even the wonderfully silly ostrich, redeemed by her wild speed. But nothing of the beaver! Doubtless this is because Job, confined to the old world, had not come across Castor canadensis, and so God did not want to confuse him (Job was freaked out enough already). But if God had been aiming at a North American audience, there is no doubt the beaver would have starred in the account, because there may be no finer creature under heaven.

Jim Wallis 4-25-2018

THOSE BEARING witness at Standing Rock have become some of the most important, and most prophetic, leaders protecting God’s earth in America today—especially given the threat to our environment that Donald Trump represents.

There is no better example of what the struggle to protect God’s creation looks like now, and may look like in the future, than the “water protectors” at Standing Rock, who have put their bodies on the line for months to stop the Dakota Access pipeline from being built on sacred tribal lands and endangering the water supply of Indigenous people. Native Americans have been joined by people of every color and creed, including clergy (see “A Chorus of Resistance” in this issue) and military veterans, to prevent the construction from moving forward, despite brutal attacks from private security forces and state law enforcement.

The decision by the Army Corp of Engineers in early December to deny an easement for the pipeline route across Lake Oahe on the Missouri River, adjacent to the Standing Rock reservation, will temporarily halt the construction. But the head of the company building the pipeline has been a major contributor to Trump’s campaign, and with perhaps the most anti-environment president in memory about to enter office, the struggle is far from over.

“It is a temporary victory,” Denise McKay, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux told the Washington Post. “We’ve got to stay put and stay united.” Her daughter, Chelsea Summers, added, “everybody is still here for the long haul.”

Cherice Bock 4-25-2018

IF YOU'RE LIKE ME, you care about creation, but have a looming gap between your concern and knowing what to do about it. It can be paralyzing to live in an age of global climate change, environmental degradation, pollution, habitat loss, ocean acidification, lead in the drinking water of cities, and the melting of polar ice caps. Many works of ecotheology explain why caring for creation is a Christian imperative but struggle to get to the how.

Enter Watershed Discipleship: Reinhabiting Bioregional Faith and Practice. We can’t easily fathom a plan to care for the entire planet, but we can envision our watershed—the area in which water flows down to a common waterway such as a creek or river. (To find your watershed, enter your zip code on the EPA’s “Surf Your Watershed” site, epa.gov/surf.) Imagine caring for your watershed, along with the network of people who also live there. Ched Myers quotes Wendell Berry’s rewording of the Golden Rule to explain how this is an act of care for the entire planet: “Do unto those downstream as you would have those upstream do unto you.”

In the introduction, activist theologian Myers defines the phrase “watershed discipleship” as a “triple entendre.” It reflects “ a watershed historical moment of crisis, which demands that environmental and social justice and sustainability be integral to everything we do as Christians.” It recognizes a “ a watershed context”—that we follow Jesus in a “bioregional locus.” And “it implies that we need to be disciples of our watersheds”—in other words, “learning from, following, and coming to trust ... ‘The Book of Creation.’”

Jeremy Deaton 4-23-2018

A coalition of faith leaders took to the steps of the Interior Department April 19 to ask Secretary Ryan Zinke to curb methane leaks at natural gas drilling sites. Notably, the group included a representative from the evangelical community.

4-20-2018

In the past 50 years, the country has made great strides toward equity. But racism is still embedded in every aspect of American culture, from the churches we occupy to the environmental issues shaping our planet. People of faith can tackle these problems by working outside the lines that keep churches racially segregated. One way forward is through collaborating with other church communities on joint environmental projects.

Leslie Cox 4-18-2018

While we look out over creation, we must earnestly ask ourselves how we can participate in communion with the lands surrounding us if there is no clean water to drink, food to eat, or creation in which to delight.

Sam Boden 2-05-2018

Signs warn residents of water restrictions in Cape Town, South Africa October 17, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Hutchings. 

Perhaps climate change’s calamities will galvanize the international political scene, cracking the iron grip of the wealthy on our politics and forcing redistribution of resources. But no matter what happens, people of faith must lead the charge in envisioning a just world for all inhabitants. To slow the destruction of the earth, a fundamental reimagining of our societies is required.

Image via Emily McFarlan Miller / RNS

The overall pattern that emerged is that concern about the environment has been flat over the past two decades, and in some cases declined. For example, more Christians prioritized economic growth over protecting the environment in 2015 than they did in 1990.

Pope Francis (R) greets a member of an indigenous group of the Peruvian Amazon region, at the Coliseum Madre de Dios, in Puerto Maldonado, Peru January 19, 2018. REUTERS/Henry Romero

"The native Amazonian peoples have probably never been so threatened on their own lands as they are at present," the pope told a crowd of indigenous people from more than 20 groups including the Harakbut, Esse-ejas, Shipibos, Ashaninkas, and Juni Kuin.

the Web Editors 11-03-2017

Image via Shutterstock

The findings directly contradict the Trump administration's policies on climate change. The Environmental Protection Agency has removed mentions of climate change from their website, with administrator Scott Pruitt denying that carbon dioxide is a primary contributor to global warming. "It begs the question, where are members of the administration getting their information from? They’re obviously not getting it from their own scientists," Philip B. Duffy, president of the Woods Hole Research Center, said.

Kermit Hovey 5-26-2017

Image via Rob Crandall / Shutterstock

On Capitol Hill, we find Democrats acknowledge climate change, affirm the need for action, and sometimes even express frustration and discouragement that there has not been more action. It is as if they need more hope. On the other hand, we find Republicans continue to minimize climate change as a problem or maximize the unworkable unaffordability of a solution. Yet sometimes, off camera and behind the scenes, we encounter Republicans who fear calling for climate action due to the risk of being “primary-ed” or knocked out of an election in a primary. It is as if they need more courage.

 

Salvation cannot remain an individualized spiritualized concept. When the psalmists called out for salvation, they meant salvation from present suffering and danger. When the crowd shouted “Hosanna” at Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem, they weren’t referring to the afterlife. When we talk about salvation in the context of our warming climate, we mean deliverance from the most destructive force our species has ever faced. When it comes to climate change, we have to think about community and salvation in a global sense. We must start to recognize that our communities are mutually dependent upon each other.

Avery Davis Lamb 4-21-2017

Image via Patricia Camerota 

It is crucial for Christians to be involved in this march and supportive of science. Our orientation to the world is to care for all creation, human and non-human. Science, when done humbly and rigorously, recognizing our creaturely place in creation, and seeking understanding over control, enables us to more fully care for the world and draw closer to God. The march for science is an opportunity to stand in solidarity with scientists whose work helps us better understand the world and care for the oppressed.